Need Help Choosing The Right Graphics Card for cycles

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1

Hello all,

I am looking at buying a laptop and want to purchase one that is compatible with cycles. I am looking at buying an Acer(Cannot change brand), and there are two different Nvidia Chipsets used 540M and 630M. Based on my knowledge I believe either would work with cycles. If anyone has experience with Acer laptops / the graphics cards could they please answer a couple questions for me.

  1. Does anyone know if these cards are compatible with cycles?
  2. Do they run faster than CPU rendering?
  3. Is one chipset better than the other?

Thank You

2
  1. They are buth CUDA capable (as are all Nvidia cards).
  2. Yes, several times faster even if the laptop run an i7 CPU.
  3. The 540m runs a higher clock, have faster memory, but as both GPU’s have 96 core, in Cycles I think the difference is negligible.
3

Thank you very much for the quick response. I didn’t notice the clock frequency differences nice catch. I think I will go with the 540M then.